As a child when we went visiting friends my mother and her mother always took a jar of her seasonal jam. Perhaps today the visitor’s gift is replaced by a token bottle of wine or maybe chocolates, but I love the presents we can make ourselves, such as jam. Although we are all time-poor, it worries me that we will lose the ease and knowledge to make these simple, inexpensive and delicious gifts that are stored in the kitchen cupboard. So I am keen to share as much as I can about making jam.
The easiest way to learn to make jam or marmalade is to watch someone, but I am nevertheless having a go at writing about it. The best marmalade is made with Seville oranges. They have a very short season in NSW, beginning in early August for about three weeks.
Oranges seem to have originated from eastern India or southern China and have been cultivated for more than two millennia. All orange varieties are derived from the bitter orange belonging to Citrus quarantium group known as the Seville, or marmalade orange. Seville oranges are renowned for their wonderfully perfumed flowers, aromatic skin and sharp juice. In Seville in Spain, the trees are grown as street trees, and they stand like handsome guards with dark green foliage, brilliant orange fruit and trunks painted bright white with lime. Highly prized in northern Europe, Louis XIV followed his grandfather’s establishment of the L’Orangery garden in Paris with one in Versailles, instructing his gardener to hold back the flowers to maximise their scent when they were wheeled out in their tubs for a magnificent display.
I buy my oranges, and have done so ever since I started making this marmalade, from a grower at Lower Portland near Dural on the Colo River. He describes the original Sevilles in Australia as being rough skinned , or “grumpy” as he calls them – a wonderful way of describing them. The smooth skins we are used to have been purposely developed for market. Large jam factories no longer use them, and regrettably, many farmers are pulling out old Seville orange trees, as they are no longer fashionable.
A good jam or marmalade should be firm in consistency, brilliant in colour with an even distribution of fruit. The fruit must have good pectin and acid. Seville oranges have both these properties. Pectin is the setting agent in jams, and is generally at its highest immediately before the fruit fully ripens, diminishing when over ripe. The setting of jam depends on the pectin in the mixture to form a gel, as well as the interaction of the pectin, acid and sugar components. As a guide, an effective ratio for the interaction is to use equal weights of sugar, fruit and water.
A preserving pan or deep saucepan with a heavy base and slightly sloping sides is the best to use. A deep pan allows the mixture to boil without fear of it boiling over, the heavy base minimises the risk of burning and the wide top lets the water to evaporate from the mixture quickly, reaching setting point in the shortest possible time. The faster the jam reaches setting point, the better the colour will be, although care should be taken, as jams can burn easily. Setting point is reached when a small amount of jam is placed on a chilled saucer and as it cools the surface becomes wrinkly and stiff. I always keep the saucers handy to check the changes as the marmalade progresses.
Next time I have dinner with friends, I will take a Seville orange tree, as I was sad to hear from my grower in Dural of their unfashionability, and they might become hard to find.
This is three-day marmalade.
6 large Seville oranges
Caster sugar
Cut off and discard the thick ends of the oranges, then thinly slice the oranges and cover them with cold water (about 3.5Lt. Leave overnight. Next day, bring to boil and simmer gently for about 40 minutes to one hour. This softens the skins. Next day, measure by cups, the fruit and soaking water. Put aside equal cups of sugar. Bring the fruit and soaking water to the boil and then add the sugar. Boil briskly until the marmalade reaches setting point (about one hour). Allow to cool down for fi ve minutes and stir to distribute the fruit evenly. Bottle and seal the marmalade while hot in sterilised jars, filling to about 5mm from the rim of the jar. This should make about eight 300ml jars.